So, from time to time on NUF someone makes a thread about harem and how people feel about it in general... Them some people say they love it, others that they hate it, others that they're happy for as long as the characters are well-developed... And then some say that they're fine with only Reverse Harem, but not with Harem, because Reverse Harem seems to have better characters in their opinion... Then someone goes and says that they dislike Reverse Harem and likes Harem, because Reverse Harems aren't realistic in their opinion due to men not liking being near other naked men and the sex would feel weird or downright hostile (and they also say that girls are fine with it), and then there would also be problems related to who impregnates the wife first and gets the children and whatnot... Or so those people say. So like... I don't care about people's opinions if they go as far as the 1st paragraph, but the stuff said on the 2nd paragraph bothers me a lot... Let's start from the Reverse Harem>Harem angle. To put it simply... A given story being better than other doesn't have to do with its genre/tags, but it has to do with the author doing a good job... You thinking that the Reverse Harem characters are better just has to do with your own biased sample. While you do have the right to prefer one genre over the other, saying that one has better characters is just silly. That has nothing to do with genre, it has to do with author skill. And then there are the arguments of someone that dislike Reverse Harem and uhn... God, they're ridiculous. Like, to begin with, why do you assume that being in a Reverse Harem means that everyone needs to have sex at the same time? Did you ever considered that the harem members might take turns? Because that's how historical harems usually worked. Instead of doing sex with 3+ people at the same time, they just did it sex with two people, and did it in different days... Also, not every girl is fine with showing her body to other women, nor are they necessarily fine with seeing the bodies of other women... That's just a dumb assumption. And then the whole thing about impregnation and having children... Ever heard of communication? Couples need to do that a lot to maintain a healthy relationship, yanno? You can just... Talk those things out in advance. Or maybe the men in the relationship don't need to particularly care about who will be the biological father of which children, because they'll all be the children's fathers regardless, since they're all a family and stuff... Because yanno... That's a pretty sensible take on things. Family ties are more than just biological ties. And uhn... Okay, that's about it I think. I've seen this kind of discussion and arguments come out a few times, and they always annoyed me, but I never bothered with replying because I never thought it would lead anywhere~ Now it's out of my system, Alice out~
But it can be a rough rule of thumb. For instance, imo, many of the romance novels often have a headache inducing love triangles or forced plots where the couples have to separate due to reasons like misunderstandings and stuff(think afternoon soap operas) but if we look at most BL novels, the romance is more straightforward, direct and skips the angst stage of insecurity(many a times), I am not saying BL is better than straight but I say that BL delivers romance better as a rough rule of thumb. And I guess that’s what the ppl who say the above are implying?-
I think... rather than this argument being used for a case-by-case basis, when it's used to compare the genres, it mostly refers to the cliches/most commonly seen tropes that are being spread around. In my opinion, I feel like the cliche cringey common reverse harems are better than the cliche cringey common harems in general for me, and therefore I like one and not the other. and think one is better than the other... you know?
As for this, I can give real life examples of matrilineal societies where polyandry exists. Often a woman marries brothers and they have children who belong to the house? And again it’s the mother’s house and not the father. So who the biological father is doesn’t really matter. I think some Tibetan households follow the above.... Historically or rather mythologically we have this woman who was married to 5 brothers. They made a rule wherein everyone would rotate and spend an year with her. This rule was mostly setup for the bedroom activities. For more day to day scenarios, they all mingled quite easily. Also she wasn’t their only wife. The brothers all had other wives(not shared wife) but she was their MAIN wife aka the queen of the kingdom(yeah the brothers were rulers of an empire). So yeah what you say makes sense XD
That would actually be a funny development if the MC is an entitled bitch who doesn’t deserve jack shit. Although you would have to be a real piece of work to make so many people disgusted enough to switch the team they bat for
Well, I wouldn't say that it isn't related to the genre... I mean the real difference here aside from author's skill when talking about genre is the audience. For reverse harems, the audience tend to be women, which tend to be more picky about character interactions and personalities(even if the personalities are simple). Thus the side characters are given bigger roles(as far as events go, not always screen time) and some individuality (even if they may be plain). Of course the genre has the downside of often time making the MC too useless without the harem members rescuing them. For the harem genre, it is aimed at men (mostly horny teens). So most of the harem members tend to just be trophy wives, completely useless and can't do anything without the MC. They are also nothing more than personality checkboxes with no individual wills on their own and drop their entire lives just to follow the MC wherever he goes. Though I will note lastly, harem and reverse harem as a genre doesn't always mean a sexual relationship. Multiple(3+) men/women pursuing 1 person is harem. And if they get into marriage, that is already polygamy.
Male power fantasies tend to be more honest than female power fantasies E.g. harems are open about the weight of sexual attraction on the harem, but reverse harems very often try to justify it with romance first Basically, harems are openly harems, while reverse harems try to be disguised as serial monogamy
I think the main reason why some people prefer reverse harem to harem is just general differences between male and female lead wish-fulfilment novels. A lot of novels (at least from what I've read) that feature harems of females are also heavily focusing on power fantasy and just generally have shorter interaction periods with each harem member, since their male audience cares less for romance. Reverse harems focus more on the actual harem and interactions between MC and harem members, and thus the harem members are a bit more fleshed out and don't blend into the endless sea of identical beauties in generic harem. The whole sex dynamic thing doesn't really make sense to me, whether it's harem or reverse harem, so I won't talk about it. I guess in this case, the harem refers to ones where the harem members are all romantically interested in the MC, unlike Tensura where there just happen to be a lot of females that admire/have good relationships with the MC. Because yeah, that's also considered harem on NU.
This is true, but it also depends on the country of origin. For example, as far as anime, novels, and manga have taught us, female and male skinship is very common in Japan. Korea and China hasn't really shown us that as much, though. Of course, being fine with seeing naked bodies isn't the same as seeing them while you're doing the deed. As people have mentioned, this argument is usually used as a catch-all. Which, to be fair, can be somewhat correct due to how many times the harem theme has been used. However, it should never be used as a qualifying argument in whether or not a novel you've never read is any good. Instead, personal preferences are much more important. Don't like BL? Then don't read it. Don't like reverse harem? Don't read it. Don't like too many politics in your novels? Don't read it. But never let them be the deciding factor if the story seems otherwise good. And never use them as a reason to ruin novels other people love.
Oh, I can agree on this one. I very rarely read stuff with Male Protags these days, so I naturally have a much higher chance of being willing to read Reverse Harem over Harem simply because I like Female Protags more~ But of course! xD A big rant would take 1h or more to write! \(^^)/
The funny thing is that the harem members, no matter their gender, hardly talk to each other about anything that doesn't revolve around the MC. lol Poly relationships don't work like that. Functional ones, at least. Real people don't just stay put waiting for their turn to fuck the desired partner. They are supposed to love the other members as well. (Be bisexual basically). But you don't see that happening. Why? Cuz that would threaten the insecurities of the audience. There's a reason why all harems share the stereotypical 'S/He only had eyes for the MC since the moment they met', 'I was just playing before I met you' or 'you are the only person I've ever considered attractive' to varying degrees. It is a genre that panders to insecure people.
*laughs* It's not that much, usually about 1000-2000 words depending on how easily the words come to mind~
Sex? What is that? Can it fill your stomach? Can it make your life better? Ok, jokes aside, having one true love is better than having multiple partners. Cuz you know, low risk towards STD...